District B13

Paris' ghettos have been gone out of control. The worst one is District B13. Sounds like a generic premise for a yamakasi (urban running) movie, right?



District B13 is the best action movie I've seen since Kill Bill. There is no BS, the director (The Professional, La Femme Nikita) knows that this is an action movie, and gets on with it. There are some really cool chase scenes (on foot!) and some great fights. It was great to see some creative acrobatics without wires. The french hip-hop soundtrack was very fitting, and the movie just rushed from incredible action scene to incredible action scene for the whole 80 minutes. Whenever I thought there would be a cliché, the plot took a slight shift to something a lot cooler than what I predicted.

This movie should have been formulaic and generic. But the execution was mind-blowing. One of the best action movies in years. Simple. Fun. Awesome.